


my heart is joy

by weatheredlaw



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemon Separation, Daemon Touching, F/M, Non Consensual Daemon Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 04:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8734798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: Newt wonders if it’s a sign – that the world may be at war with itself, but there could be hope for these lonely hands of his.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i've been considering a daemon au for a few days now, and i decided to just. go for it. i may explore more of this, i may not. might not be everyone's cup of tea, but i just really love daemons, and i have a lot of headcanon's about pure blooded wizarding families and how they deal with daemons so. i also apologize that it's a bit all over the place, timeline-wise. it became a little stream of consciousness on me without my realizing, but. i think it works.

It is the most curious thing about muggles, or no-maj’s, or whatever you’d like to call them.

They have always been afraid of magic, sought to stamp it out where they can find it, or later deny it when they finally see it. Magic is a completely unbelievable state of _being_ , where one rational person cannot exist.

They don’t see it, but Newt always finds it fascinating that they live literally surrounded by it – and do not make the leap.

Perhaps it is because dӕmons have been around for as long as humans have – what is _normal_ and consistent cannot be the impossible. He counts the wizarding world lucky that they were not born without dӕmons.

 

* * *

 

It had been expected that, like all good Scamanders, Newt’s dӕmon would settle when he was thirteen or so, and be rather fitting of the family name. His father’s had settled into a beautiful goshawk, his brother’s a pallid harrier. All proud birds of prey, all perched quiet and still on the shoulders of the men in his family. As a boy, Newt had tried to will his own dӕmon, Abby, to take the form of any one of these birds.

But she had refused.

She preferred to be able to fit into his pocket, somewhere close and warm, always near his heart.

This made things difficult as Newt grew older, when people would meet him for the first time, and Abby could not be seen.

The boy without a dӕmon.

Abby didn’t settle until Newt was fifteen, and when she did, she didn’t do it… _properly_.

Newt came home from school – what would be his last full year of it – and Abby had settled into an impetuously bright yellow snake, curled around his arm as he descended from the steps of the train.

“Have her do something else,” his father had said.

Newt, always a generally quiet soul in his father’s presence, felt his entire being grow very still. His mother glanced over her shoulder at him, and Newt now suspects that she knew right then, as mothers often do.

His father repeated himself.

Newt said: “She can’t, sir.”

“What do you _mean_ , she can’t?”

Newt gripped his suitcase. Said nothing.

His mother put a careful hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Newt _means_ to say she’s settled. We’ll have to celebrate. She’s chosen a very unique form,” his mother added. “An interesting choice, both of you.”

Newt’s father did not speak to him for the rest of the week.

 

* * *

 

Muggles like to have their dӕmons close. Lots of wizards do, too. This is something Newt has learned over the years – that dӕmons have uses beyond the surface of what he was taught as a boy. That a dӕmon did not always represent a symbol on a family crest, or a position of power. Newt met horse dӕmons that worked the field alongside their partners, dogs that serves as guards, birds that served as messengers – he met a woman in Dublin with a _kneazle_ for a dӕmon. She had to tell muggles he was some kind of tabby.

When Newt is thirteen, they take Abby away from him for the first time.

She is expected to settle that year, but she doesn’t. Newt’s heart _aches_ as they pull her from him, the door slamming shut on their connection as he fights the urge to _writhe_ at the table.

His father tells him this is what it means to be a man of this house. It is tradition, he says, to withstand the separation.

(Newt recalls Theseus reacting rather poorly, having a sort of fit at they dragged him away from Myra, her newly found wings flapping madly against the trainer’s face.

He told himself that would not happen to him, that when father said it was time, he would say no.

Newt must often remind himself that he is not as strong as he wants to be, and not as brave as he could be.)

They take Abby and they shut the door and Newt grinds his teeth and decides that he will not break in front of his father.

Eventually, they return her.

She smells like…another.

At night, she trembles in his arms, taking one form and then another and another and another _and another_ –

“Please,” he begs. “Please, stop.”

“I don’t want to do it again.”

“We have to.”

“ _I don’t want to do it again.”_ Abby settles into a large cat, curling against his chest. Newt buries his face in her fur.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m so, so sorry.”

(The end is always: he does not break. He is also his mother’s son – and he does not break.)

 

* * *

 

Newt finds that he resents the form of his dӕmon, but only for a short while. It is not _Abby_ that he resents, per se – but rather the way his soul has betrayed his innermost desire –

_to be noticed._

Why else would she become a bright yellow snake and live perpetually around his neck with her head resting just under his chin?

Why else would she have such a pronounced reptilian brow, capable of telegraphing the most _buried_ of Newt’s emotions?

Why else would she slither the length of his arm to get a closer look at the dӕmons of others, if only to tease, or goad?

(why else?)

 

* * *

 

Tina’s dӕmon surprises him.

And Tina notices.

She must have to defend her dӕmon quite often, because her speech – “He settled when I was twelve, he wanted to make sure I was safe, a dog dӕmon is incredibly useful, you’d be surprised.” – is so practiced that Newt finds himself pleasantly endeared. And he is a lovely thing, truly.

“What should I call him?”

“His name is Hal.”

Newt nods. “Sturdy name.”

“And you?”

“This is Abby,” Newt says, and the snake peers from around the handle of his suitcase, flicking her tongue out at Hal and Tina happily. “She’s very friendly.”

Tina raises a brow. “Well, at least one of you is.”

 

* * *

 

(At the docks, Newt reaches out and touches her cheek, and Hal bends forward and butts heads with Abby, his large one knocking into her small one. A gentle touch, but a solid one all the same.)

 

* * *

 

(The Sudanese girl, her dӕmon was dying. That was the first thing Newt saw.)

 

* * *

 

(Credence Barebone – his dӕmon is dying, but Tina doesn’t know the signs. Newt teaches her, so she’ll always remember.

She'll tell him later that she wishes he hadn’t.

She sees dying dӕmons everywhere, now.)

 

* * *

 

Percival Graves’s dӕmon changes in front of them – just as the man does. Everyone knows Gellert Grindelwald’s dӕmon, only a hundred terrifying sketches of it grace the papers, her mouth open wide as if to swallow them whole.

A long green boa constrictor, her entire body trying to wrap around him, a sort of protection.

Newt feels Abby’s fear, placates it.

_That’s not us. We’re not like that._

_(People will see us like that. People will say—)_

Jacob’s dӕmon, an auburn colored hare, hops over. “We don’t see you like that. You don’t look like they do.”

 

* * *

 

(Queenie and her otter dӕmon walk into the rain together, and say goodbye to Jacob and Ruth.

Newt forces himself to watch. He did this to his friend, so he supposes it is only fitting to watch it be undone.

Tina’s hand reaches for his wrist, grazing Abby’s scales.

To touch is wrong, and both know – but neither notices, or acknowledges.

Newt wonders if it’s a sign – that the world may be at war with itself, but there could be hope for these lonely hands of his.)

**Author's Note:**

> daemon list for ur consideration:  
> newt - abby, a yellow kingsnake  
> tina - hal, a mastiff  
> queenie - puck, an otter  
> jacob - ruth, a hare  
> graves - lena, a puma  
> grindelwald - pallas, a green boa constrictor  
> theseus - myra, a pallid harrier  
> mr. scamander - hannah, a goshawk  
> mrs. scamander - paolo, a blue tailed hawk


End file.
